Respect My Truth

In a day in which truth evolves depending on who is speaking it, interpreting it, and perhaps attempting to live it, we run the risk of over simplifying the idea of respecting truth as an innate right thing to do. While that intro might sound like a bunch of philosophical gibberish, consider this: all personal truth, that is, truth that is subjected to the beliefs or perceptions of a temporal position or identity is relative only to that individual. What I mean by that is, if I stub my toe on a coffee table and afterword decide that the coffee table is a cumbersome piece of trash that no one in their right mind should have in their living room. That’s my truth. However, to someone else looking at the same sturdy coffee table might appreciate the solid construction with which it was made. In other words, truth is relative if it is based solely on opinion. This is precisely why respecting “truth” is all but irrelevant. This can be said with complete confidence because the actual truth, that which is based on fact and not a loose interpretation of someone’s hard-held opinion, does not require respect.

Respect, by nature, applies to a position or entity that feeds on ego and a constant acknowledgement that it (whatever it was) must be bowed down to. Kings need respect. Parents and teachers deserve respect. And while a lofty notion like truth should be respected, it does not require respect. What is does require is reverence. When we do not treat truth with the reverence acknowledging it deserves, we placate it into being something less loft, less pure, less powerful. We can not learn from truth we do not revere. Nor can we shape policy without an understanding of what it really is.

Truth, that long sought after principle which all life is based on, has been twisted and contorted to fit in to every scenario; to meet the needs of every person, corporation, ideology, or purpose. The truth, which was taken for granted for generations instead of being revered like it ought, has been misrepresented as personal ideology that is defined and communicated by the person or entity to which is applies - meaning that he who states the rules is he who makes the rules and when these new rules break every other rule we as a society have accepted as a non-negotiable is suddenly and inexplicably thrown out the window like yesterday’s trend.

For the length and breath of human existence, a child in the womb was… wait for it... a child. There was never any doubt that once the menstrual cycle stopped, the baby started. Without ultrasound machines, without blood tests, without science sending sonogram waves through, well, we all know what I’m getting at. The point is that it was not until someone invented a neat and legal way of ending an unwanted pregnancy that we began changing the truth to explain why this idea of abortion became a reasonable, if not expected, option. Abortion, which occurred long before Roe v. Ward, has become the poster child for respecting the truth that decisions about reproductive health supersede the right to live. After all, the baby is relegated to second hand citizenship because he or she has not taken a breath outside of the womb yet. When blacks were considered second hand citizens because they are black, American fought a war, enforced a law, wrote a decree, and made an amendment to the Constitution to make sure that the mistake was rectified. Now the current administration is seeking to provide financial reparations for the years of racist-fueled personal truth that a blacks are inferior to whites.

When advocates for the suffrage movement finally convinced our government women could actually use their intellect and intuition to exercise the right to vote, men across the country, and women as well, began the process of changing their minds and now women make up more than % of the vote in any election. In fact, women hold 23% of the statewide elective executive office positions in 2019.

A odd man with an even odder mustache convinced a group of people that Jews were to blame for the internal conflicts within a nation. This ability to manipulate truth into something based on prejudice cost six million people their lives. We are still asking ourselves how did this happen, even though we can go back through history and see, or infer, exactly what happened and why. In each one of these instances and countless more, someone proposed a counter-culture idea and convinced someone else to believe an alternative truth. So now, when a little boy draws one too many rainbows or decides that glitter is cool, he becomes a prime candidate for a future homosexual lifestyle or trans identity in the courtroom of public opinion.

Like the gold in Fort Knox, if the truth is not based on an unchanging and infallible standard then it is worthless, like paper money with no backing at all. In a “civilized” nation, we cannot become so politically correct that we cater to and adjust our morale compass to account for a variety interpretations of the truth just to make people feel better about the challenges they face in life. It’s like little league soccer. Everyone gets a trophy and a pat on the back and therefore it all looses meaning. Truth based opinion or circumstantial evidence that has been interpreted through the lens of fear or worse, and -ism, is the beginning of the end of civilization itself. So back to the beginning of this set of facts. If it is a baby, and it is, why not wear a condom?

When I say, ‘Respect my Truth,’ what I really mean is revere the truth. Learn from it. Understand it. Dissect it. Keep it pure - don’t adulterate it for your own temporal convenience. If you’re not ready to be a parent, care for a child for eighteen years (or more), then wear a condom. And if you lack the equipment that decision could be applied to, don’t have an abortion. Utilize your right to choose your reproductive destiny by insisting that your partner does. It takes no more than 45 seconds and costs less than sixty cents.